If you were exposed to radioactive waste from a former U.S. nuclear or weapons site, a nuclear contamination lawsuit is one of two realistic paths to compensation, and for most people it is no longer the easier one. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, expanded in July 2025, now pays qualifying residents of designated areas without requiring them to prove radiation caused their illness.1U.S. Department of Justice. RECA Program Litigation remains available and, after a 2024 federal appeals ruling that the Supreme Court left in place, is more viable in parts of the country than it was a few years ago.
The Two Paths: RECA Claim or Civil Lawsuit
A RECA claim is an administrative filing with the U.S. Department of Justice. You do not sue anyone, you do not need an expert witness on radiation dose, and you do not need to prove causation. If you have a qualifying diagnosis and can document that you lived, worked, or attended school in a covered area for the required period, DOJ pays a set amount.1U.S. Department of Justice. RECA Program
A civil lawsuit is the traditional route: you sue the government contractor that handled the waste, usually under the federal Price-Anderson Act, and you have to prove that their conduct caused your injury. Damages can be far larger than a RECA payment, but the causation bar has historically been high enough to sink many cases before trial.
The two paths are not mutually exclusive in principle, but each case turns on your location, diagnosis, dates of residence, and what proof you can gather. Start by checking RECA eligibility, because it is faster and does not depend on defeating a defense expert.
The RECA Path: What It Covers and Who Qualifies
Congress let the original RECA expire in June 2024. President Trump signed a revived and expanded version into law on July 4, 2025.1U.S. Department of Justice. RECA Program For the first time, the program covers people exposed to Manhattan Project waste, not just downwinders from nuclear testing and uranium workers.
Coverage for Manhattan Project waste includes residents of 21 designated ZIP codes in the St. Louis area who lived, worked, or attended school there for at least two years after January 1, 1949.2St. Louis Public Radio. St. Louis Apply Compensation Radiation Exposure Similar provisions extend to communities in Tennessee, Alaska, and Kentucky. Uranium workers in 11 states also gained expanded eligibility, and the standard payout for downwinders and onsite test participants rose from $50,000 to $100,000.3Arizona Mirror. Nuclear Radiation Victims Can Again Apply for Compensation Under Revived RECA
For Manhattan Project waste claimants, the payment is $50,000 for a living individual (or total documented medical expenses, whichever is greater), and $25,000 for survivors of someone who has died.2St. Louis Public Radio. St. Louis Apply Compensation Radiation Exposure
The deadline is firm: all claims must be filed by December 31, 2027.1U.S. Department of Justice. RECA Program
Take-up is early but real. By mid-November 2025, DOJ had approved at least 176 claims totaling $8.57 million, and at least 40 people in the St. Louis area had received payments.4St. Louis Public Radio. Residents St. Louis Region Beginning Receive Radiation Exposure Compensation St. Louis County Executive Sam Page estimated that up to 300,000 people could ultimately be eligible in that region alone.2St. Louis Public Radio. St. Louis Apply Compensation Radiation Exposure
Why Lawsuits Have Been Hard to Win: The Causation Problem
To succeed in a nuclear contamination lawsuit, plaintiffs have historically needed expert testimony estimating the radiation dose they received and connecting it to their specific illness. Judges apply the Daubert standard to that expert evidence, and if the methodology does not hold up, the case collapses.
That is what happened in Butler v. Mallinckrodt, a set of Coldwater Creek cases before Judge Audrey G. Fleissig in the Eastern District of Missouri. The plaintiffs alleged breast cancer, brain cancer, and mantle cell lymphoma tied to radiation exposure from Manhattan Project waste. On September 30, 2022, the court granted summary judgment for Mallinckrodt and Cotter Corporation. The judge had already excluded the plaintiffs’ expert testimony on radiation dose and causation, and without it they could not establish that the contamination caused their cancers. All claims were dismissed.5U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri. Butler v. Mallinckrodt, Summary Judgment Order
The science outside the courtroom has moved in the plaintiffs’ direction. A peer-reviewed study in JAMA Network Open by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers examined more than 4,200 people who grew up in the St. Louis area. Children who lived within one kilometer of Coldwater Creek were 44% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer over their lifetimes and 85% more likely to develop radiosensitive cancers such as thyroid, breast cancer, and leukemia compared to those living more than 20 kilometers away. Thyroid cancer risk was five times higher near the creek.6JAMA Network Open. Childhood Residential Proximity to Coldwater Creek and Cancer Risk Whether that population-level data translates into admissible individual causation testimony is still fought case by case.
The 2024 Eighth Circuit Ruling That Changed the Odds
The other reason lawsuits have failed is a legal defense: if a contractor complied with federal radiation limits, several federal circuits held that it could not be found negligent under state law. Five circuits treated the federal regulations as the exclusive standard of care in Price-Anderson Act cases.
On October 30, 2024, the Eighth Circuit broke from that view in Mazzocchio v. Cotter Corp., a Coldwater Creek case brought by two sisters with cancer. The court held that state-law negligence and strict liability standards can apply even when a defendant was in full compliance with federal radiation regulations.7U.S. Supreme Court. Cotter Petition for Certiorari The Eighth Circuit denied rehearing en banc on December 18, 2024.8Exchange Monitor. 8th Circuit Refuses to Toss Out Coldwater Creek Case
Cotter petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 18, 2026, the Court denied certiorari, leaving the Eighth Circuit ruling in place.9SCOTUSblog. Cotter Corporation v. Mazzocchio For plaintiffs in the Eighth Circuit (Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota), that means a state-law tort claim can proceed without proving the defendant broke a federal rule. Elsewhere, the older, tougher standard largely still applies.
When Lawsuits Have Actually Paid
Two settlements show what a successful nuclear contamination lawsuit can look like.
McClurg v. MI Holdings (Coldwater Creek)
More than 500 individuals sued Mallinckrodt and Cotter Corporation in 2012 in the Eastern District of Missouri, alleging cancer, illness, and death from Coldwater Creek-area radioactive waste. The claims were brought under the Price-Anderson Act.10U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Cotter Corporation v. United States, Opinion Both defendants settled in September 2018, with amended agreements in April 2019. Judge Fleissig approved the settlements on December 30, 2019, finding them “fair and reasonable compensation.” The total amount was not publicly disclosed, but Cotter later stated in court filings that it incurred approximately $15 million in combined liability and defense costs.11U.S. Department of Justice. Cotter Cert Petition
Cook v. Rockwell International (Rocky Flats)
More than 15,000 homeowners downwind of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver sued its operators, Dow Chemical and Rockwell International, in 1990, alleging plutonium contamination had deflated their property values. A jury sided with the plaintiffs in 2006, producing a judgment with interest of $926 million, then the largest in Colorado history. The Tenth Circuit vacated the verdict in 2010 over jury instructions.12Justia. Cook v. Rockwell International Corp. After a 2015 Tenth Circuit ruling by Judge Neil Gorsuch that the Price-Anderson Act does not preempt state-law nuisance claims below the threshold of a “nuclear incident,” the parties reached a $375 million settlement in May 2016, ending a 26-year fight.13High Country News. After 26 Years, a Settlement Over Rocky Flats Plutonium Contamination Rockwell contributed $243.75 million and Dow the remainder. The court gave final approval on April 28, 2017; more than 11,000 class members opted in, and by December 2018 over $204 million had been distributed.14Kroll. Rocky Flats Environmental Class Action
Both cases took decades. Neither would have been a good substitute for a person who needed help paying for cancer treatment now.
Cleanup Fraud Sites: A Different Pattern
Some sites involve not just contamination but falsified cleanup data. At the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, cleanup contractor Tetra Tech EC handled radiological remediation from 2003 to 2014. Two supervisors pleaded guilty in 2018 to falsifying soil samples and were sentenced to prison.15FoundSF. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap at Hunters Point In January 2025, Tetra Tech agreed to a $97 million settlement with the Department of Justice under the False Claims Act and Superfund law, admitting no liability.16Engineering News-Record. Tetra Tech Agrees to $97M Pact to Settle San Francisco Navy Base Cleanup Suit
A residents’ or environmental-group challenge to the underlying cleanup is a harder case. When Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice sued the Navy over its continued reliance on the discredited Tetra Tech data, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria granted summary judgment for the Navy on March 30, 2026, even while noting the Navy’s “little progress” on retesting.17Courthouse News Service. Navy Ducks Suit Over Radioactive Waste Cleanup of San Francisco Shipyard
What to Do If You Think You Were Exposed
Check RECA eligibility first. The DOJ program requires a qualifying medical diagnosis and documentation of residence, work, or school attendance in a covered area for the required period. In St. Louis County, the county library has already helped more than 3,700 people gather residency records.4St. Louis Public Radio. Residents St. Louis Region Beginning Receive Radiation Exposure Compensation The claim window closes December 31, 2027, and DOJ approvals are still building up capacity, so early filing matters.1U.S. Department of Justice. RECA Program
If your situation falls outside RECA, a lawsuit against the contractor that handled the waste is the remaining option. Talk to a plaintiffs’ firm with Price-Anderson Act experience about whether your location, diagnosis, and available evidence support a case, particularly if you are in the Eighth Circuit, where the Mazzocchio ruling has widened what plaintiffs can argue. Filing a RECA claim does not, on its face, require you to give up other claims, but any lawyer you retain should confirm that in your specific circumstances before you sign anything.